Method of coiling metallic clothing and coil produced thereby



y 1969 J. D. HOLLINGSWORTH 3,442,375

METHOD OF COILING METALLIC CLOTHING AND COIL PRODUCED THEREBY Filed Dec.20, 1967 Sheet of 2 INVENTOR F G. 2 JOHN D. HOLLINGSWORTH May 6, 1969 J.D. HOLLINGSWORTH 3,442,375

METHOD OF COILING METALLIC CLOTHING AND COIL PRODUCED THEREBY Sheet & of2 Filed Dec. 20, 1967 TO DRIVE FIG. 5

INVENTOR JOHN D. HOLLINGSWORTH ATTOiuvEY United States Patent 3,442,375METHOD OF COILING METALLIC CLOTHING AND COIL PRODUCED THEREBY John D.Hollingsworth, P.O. Box 516, Greenville, S.C. 29602 Filed Dec. 20, 1967,Ser. No. 692,225 Int. Cl. B65h 55/04, 55/00 US. Cl. 206-59 ClaimsABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE This invention relates to a new shipping coilof metallic wire card clothing and to a method of producing such ashipping coil.

Metallic wire card clothing is a thin metal strip of considerablelength. Metallic clothing has a narrow bottom edge and opposite thisbottom edge is .a toothed surface or working surface of the clothing.This surface is a series of substantially uniform teeth punched into thetop edge of the metallic clothing. The bottom edge is slightly widerthan the toothed edge to provide some rigidity in the clothing. Suchmetallic clothing is used in various types of carding machines foropening, picking, or carding fibers. In such use it is wound on a metalcylinder in helical form so that there is a surface of teeth as theouter surface of the cylinder. For economic reasons this winding of themetallic clothing on metal cylinders, in some instances, has to be donein various textile mills throughout the world. Generally metallic wirecard clothing is shipped in coil form. The simplest way of winding thewire into a coil is to wind it on a core on its fiat side with the teethpointed to one side of the core and to keep winding until you havesufiicient wire on the core for economical shipment. With the advent ofhigh speed carding operations it has become more and more important thatthe metallic wire card clothing have very sharp teeth with good wearingcharacteristics. In order to produce sharp teeth which have goodabrasive life the steel used is usually heat treated and becomes quitebrittle. This brittle, heat treated, steel produces a sharp tooth whichhas long wearing properties. However, in the winding of the wire forshipping in the manner as previously done these very brittle teethreadily break off in the coil. With standard metallic wire card clothingwound in standard form on its side you will generally have anywhere fromabout 50 to 150 teeth break in a total of about three million sixhundred teeth but when you use the harder, more brittle steel teeth thisfigure will increase to about 1,000 broken teeth. A number of techniqueshave been tried to reduce this breakage problem such as protecting theteeth with a plastic cap which fits over the teeth. This shows somewhatless breakage but makes for considerably more labor costs in having toinstall and remove the plastic on some three to four miles of wire in asingle coil. Another technique is to place layers of paper or cardboardbetween each layer of wire and to space the wire across the core so thatthere is a small space between each wind. This makes the coil very bulkyand more expensive to ship and also greatly reduces the speed at whichthe wire may be wound in order to be able to maintain spacing betweenwinds.

My new coil and the method of manufacture of this coil overcomes theabove objections. In my new coil the breakage of teeth is greatlyreduced and in fact virtually eliminated during the winding, shipping,and unwinding operation. Furthermore, my new coil has a very uniformwind and hence may be wound into coil form at very high speeds withlittle difliculty. This extremely uniform Wind also makes it quite easyto unwind the coil and rewind it onto the metal cylinder on which it isto be used.

Still an extra advantage of my new coil is that the metallic wire cardclothing when wound with the present invention will have a curvaturealready set into it and hence eliminates this process during the windingof the coil onto the requisite metal cylinder.

In accordance with the present invention metallic wire card clothing instrip form as produced is given a curved set; that is it is given asubstantial curve which makes it tend to wind in coil form. The metallicclothing with the set therein is then wound in helical form on a core. Aplurality of layers are wound on the core and in each layer the pointsof the metallic clothing extend outwardly substantially perpendicular tothe axis of the core.

The coil produced in accordance with the present invention is a coil ofmetallic wire card clothing with the metallic clothing having a narrowbottom edge and a toothed top edge substantially opposite each other.The coil comprises a plurality of layers of such metallic clothing witheach layer comprising helically wound metallic clothing with each windhaving the metallic clothing standing on its narrow bottom edge.

In order that the invention may be clearly understood and more readilycarried into effect it is hereinafter described with reference to theaccompanying diagrammatic drawings in which:

FIGURE 1 is a cross-sectional view of metallic wire and clothing woundon a core in accordance with the present invention;

FIGURE 2 is an enlarged side view of the metallic clothing;

FIGURE 3 is a cross-sectional view taken along line 3-3 of FIGURE 2;

FIGURE 4 is a schematic view of apparatus for carrying out the method ofthe present invention; and

FIGURE 5 is an enlarged cross-sectional view taken along line 5-5 ofFIGURE 4 showing apparatus useful in placing the curved set into themetallic clothing.

Referring to the drawings, in FIGURE 1 there is shown a spool 10 onwhich metallic wire card clothing :11 is wrapped in accordance with thepresent invention. The spool comprises a center rotatable cylinder(core) 12 having a shaft 13 at one end on which a drive pulley 14 ismounted so that the entire spool may be rotated. Mounted on this core instationary position by suitable key grooves 15 and 16 are two spacingmembers 17 and 18. The metallic wire clothing is wrapped about thecenter core between the spaces in a plurality of layers. Each layercomprises a number of helical wraps of metallic Wire card clothing withthe narrow edge of the first layer of clothing on the surface of thecenter cylinder and the narrow bottom edge of the second layer ofclothing on top of the toothed edge of the first layer and so forth. Asshown in the drawings it is preferred that between each layer there is aspacer member 20 which may be made of any suitable material such as thinsheet metal, plastic, cardboard, etc. Layers are wrapped one on top ofthe other until you reach the -'outer edge of the spacing members 17 and18. The wrap should be loose enough so that a spacer 18 may be removedand the entire coil of wire slid off the center core and wrapped forshipment. The rigidity of the wire clothing will hold it in its suitablycoiled position as wrapped.

Referring to FIGURES 2 and 3 of the drawings there is shown the metallicwire card clothing 23 used in the present invention. The clothingcomprises a narrow bottom edge 24 and opposite this narrow bottom edgeis a toothed edge 25. This is the surface in which the teeth have beenpunched. To provide rigidity in the card clothing the narrow bottom edgeis wider than the toothed edge for about A1, to A the height of theclothing forming a shoulder 26. It is the toothed edge which must bemade extremely hard and brittle with good wearing or abrasive propertiesas it is the working surface used in carding fibers. It is these teethwhich tend to break off when the metallic card clothing is wrapped inaccordance with prior art methods.

Referring to FIGURES 4 and of the drawings there is shown apparatus forcarrying the method of the present invention into practice. Prior towinding the metallic wire card clothing on a suitable spo'ol or core itis necessary to place a curved set in the clothing. The purpose of thisset is to allow the clothing to be wrapped in a circular manner on itsnarrow bottom edge rather than flop over and lay on its side. Metallicwire card clothing 30- coming from a punching, heat treating or similaroperation is passed over a rotatable surface having circular flanges 32around its periphery 31. These flanges 32 are spaced a distance apartjust slightly greater than the width of the metallic clothing and keepthe metallic clothing in an upright position about the surface of therotatable surface to produce a curved set in the metallic clothing.After the metallic clothing has the curved set placed therein it iswound on a spool or a core 33 as described in accordance with FIGURE 1.The spool is mounted on a suitable frame 34 and is rotated in thedirection of the arrows shown. In bperation either this spool or the twoguiding rotatable rolls are traversed back and forth to wind themetallic clothing on the core in a series of helical winds to form alayer of metallic clothing on the core and a second layer on top of thisand so forth.

An enlarged cross-sectional view of a suitable rotatable flanged surfaceis shown in FIGURE 5. As shown in FIG- URE 5 the rotatable surface 39rotates on a bearing surface 40. The bearing surface is mounted on arigid shaft 41 which fits the grooved hole 42 in the bearing surface. Onthe perimeter of the rotatable surface are two circular flanges 43 and44. These flanges are movable and are set in the desired position by setscrews 45. The flanges are positioned in spaced relationship to eachother so that the metallic wire 46 passes between the flanges in theupright position as the wire passes about a portion of the periphery ofthe rotatable surface. The diameter of the rotatable surface may varyfrom one inch to 3 inches or more. The amount of curved set placed inthe metallic wire will depend on the diameter of the rotatable surfaceand the portion of the periphery of the surface about which the metallicwire passes.

The coils produced in accordance with this invention have wire in whicha curved set has already been placed. This means that when this wire isrewound onto a cylin'der such as a card main cylinder or a card doffingcylinder no further curvature of set need be placed therein but it maybe wound directly from the coil. Furthermore, as shown in FIGURE 1 thehigh degree of uniformity of the wire on the coil makes for very simplewinding 'on a cylinder and allows higher speed winding and more uniformwinding on a cylinder.

In shipping coils made in accordance with the present invention there isvery little breakage of teeth. In the prior art coils, i.e., with thewire on its fiat side, approximately one thousand teeth will break outof the three million six hundred thousand teeth during the winding,shipping, and unwinding operations of clothing suitable for high speedcarding, while in my new coil less than twenty teeth will break in thesame operation.

There are also considerable space advantages to my new coils of metallicwire card clothing. Generally, metallic wire card clothing is shippedtoday in a coil having an inside diameter of 8 /2 inches and an outsidediameter of 23 inches and a thickness of 3% inches. The wire in such acoil is wound on its side. If it is desired to protect the wire as isrequired for clothing having a hardness suitable for high speed cardingby spacing the wire on its side so that the teeth K10 not contact otherteeth and by placing separators between each layer of the wire it takesapproximately three coils having an inside diameter of 12% inches and anoutside diameter of 21 inches, 5%; inches wide to make up the sameamount of wire. Compared to this it takes one coil of the presentinvention having an inside diameter of 12 /2 inches and an outsidediameter of 21 inches, 5%; inches wide to hold the same amount of wirecard clothing as the prior art coil. This of course, means greatreductions in shipping costs. Furthermore, when winding the wire on itsside it takes six times as many spacers as it does when the wire iswound in accordance with the present invention. The larger insidediameter coils are used for two primary reasons; first, to reduce thenumber of spacers required and second, to hold the curved set placed inthe metallic clothing.

With so many very fine teeth it is, of course, extremely ditficult toinspect the wire by visual inspection and generally most inspection ofthe wire is done by feel or hand. When wire is WOllllld on its side itis virtually impossible to inspect the wire until it is taken from thecoil and wound on a suitable working cylinder. However, the coil of myinvention may be readily inspected merely by feeling each layer of wireas the teeth are all upright and form a suitable inspecting surface forinspection by hand.

Having now described the invention in specific detail and exemplifiedthe manner in which it may be carried into practice it will be readilyapparent to those skilled in the art that innumerable variations,applications, modifications, and extensions of the basic principlesinvolved may be made without departing from its spirit or scope.

I claim:

'1. A coil of metallic wire card clothing said clothing having a narrowbottom edge and a toothed top edge substantially opposite each 'otherand said coil comprising a plurality of layers of metallic clothing eachlayer comprising helically wound metallic clothing with the tooth pointsextending substantially perpendicular to the axis of the core. 7

2. A coil of metallic clothing in accordance [with claim 1 wherein thereis a spacing member between each layer.

. 3. A coil of metallic clothing in accordance with claim 1 wherein themetallic clothing has a curved set in it.

4. A method of winding metallic wire card clothing having a narrowbottom edge and a toothed top edge comprising placing a curved set inthe clothing and winding .the clothing in helical convolutions about acore to form a plurality of layers of clothing on the core with thetooth points extending substantially perpendicular to the axis of thecore.

5. A method in accordance with claim 4 wherein a spacing member isplaced between each layer as it is wrapped 'on the core.

, References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,145,358 1/1939 Kronquest206-59 2,340,116 1/1944 Ferguson et a1. 2,604,986 7/1952 Berg 20659MARTHA L. RICE, Primary Examiner.

US. Cl. X.R. 72-137

